A Fraction of the Whole | Book Shelf

A crazy father. An even crazier family. References to philosophers and timeless thinkers; a jaunt to Thailand. A Fraction of the Whole might just be my type of book…. but at first glance, the book 700 pages thick seemed intimidating and any sane reader would ask themselves, "Is it going to be worth it?" For any literary reader, a book of great length needs much more than a story to hold them through because no matter how engaging the story may be, one can only endure a stylistically challenged piece of work for a few hundred pages – hence the reason Shantaram was just no Maximum City. What a book 700 pages long needs, are beautiful sentences.

This is the difference between a great story and a great storyteller. A great story lies in the idea and the series of events that weave themselves together in order to take the reader to final destination. A good storyteller takes the reader on the same ride, with the same goal, but manages to do it with beautiful sentences. The Victor Hugos, Charles Dickens, Dostoevskys and Mark Twains of the literary world told beautiful stories with beautiful sentences. Great writers weave words together with such elegance that every line, every phrase, exudes a message much deeper and wittier than imagined. In his debut book, A Fraction of the Whole, Steven Toltz crafts not only a beautiful story, but beautiful sentences.

The writing so intriguing and the characters so well developed, that after picking up A Fraction of the Whole for just ten minutes in the bookstore, it was apparent this book would be a lifelong favourite. Tolz manages to convey a multi layered story that is part adventure, part romance, part coming-of-age masterpiece, part philosophical, psychological, and sociological study and part travelogue that no matter how outlandish the events become, he manages to write in a way that never leaves the reader doubting the plausibility of it all.

Jasper Dean is the only child of a crazy father, Martin Dean, who looks at the whole upbringing of his child as one elongated sociological experiment. Martin attempts to teach Jasper lessons in the simplest of activities by entering into a personal diatribe, explaining everything from why bad haircuts actually offer personal freedom to how despair is the greatest form of self-absorption. Martin teaches his son to question everything society throws him, so much so that Jasper admits to being afraid to trust anyone, "even when it comes to asking the time". Being raised in such an abnormal living environment, Jasper Dean has an established love-hate relationship with his genius and perpetually depressed father.

Only time will tell if Steven Toltz will remain a name amongst the greats, but with his debut novel, A Fraction of the Whole, he proves himself a talented soul with the potential to have his works long outlive his own life.